You walk home, pondering the recent events and before long you arrive in front of the door to your apartment. You scan your hand, the door slides open but the lights inside don't turn on. Annoyed by the illumination system malfunctioning yet again, you walk in. Suddenly, somebody grabs you from behind, twists your arm behind your back and holds a piece of cloth over your mouth.
"I wouldn't recommend screaming."
Panicked, you try to break their hold but it's no use. Despite their warning you shout, but you only manage to make some muffled noises. When you open your mouth to scream for help again your assailant shoves the cloth deep into your mouth and removes the hand that was holding it. A second later you feel something cold pressing against your neck.
"This is going to hurt."
It's over. Just like that. Everything was so boring and mundane until just the other day. Days passing by, nothing to distinguish them, all of them melting into each other forming your dull, uneventful life. Then you got randomly mixed up in something stupid and now you're gonna die, not even knowing who did you in and why.
It's over. It's over it's over it's over it'soverit'soverit'soveritsoveritsoverowarida
You feel a searing pain throughout your entire body as the room gets illuminated and filled with crackling noises for a second. Then your assailant releases the hold and pushes you to the floor. You instinctively try to extend your arms to protect yourself from falling but your body won't move. You fall like a puppet with its strings cut but you don't feel the sensation of your body hitting the ground. Not that you need any extra pain; you're hurting all over.
"Just in case they put bugs in your body as well. This should disable them for fifteen minutes or so. Your apartment was already tapped."
You didn't really have the leeway to process it so far but judging by the voice your assailant has to be a woman. You still feel immense pain but you start regaining the ability to move your body, even if just a bit at a time. You spit out the cloth stuck in your mouth. Sure enough, when you manage to turn enough to see the assailant you see a figure of a woman with a jacket over her crop top. And a red oni mask. And uh, it's a bit hard to tell in a dark room but you're pretty sure that's an assault rifle on her back, along with a small gun-like device she's holding in her hand. Lovely.
She removes her mask and looks at you with one eye, the other being covered by a familiar eyepatch.
"Yo."
You had a hunch her voice sounded familiar but... Her face and that eyepatch, surely it couldn't be...
"Hu yu gi...?" You still have trouble forming sounds, your lips not moving the way you want them to.
"It's been a while."
Fuyuki. You used to play around all the time back in the day. She was something of a goofball, never taking off that eyepatch, making up stories about how it's used to "seal a profound darkness that could swallow the world". Something of a weirdo, but a precious friend nonetheless and a very warm and gentle girl behind the layer of her edgy persona.
She gives off a pretty different vibe than she used to. She sure put on a lot of muscle. You don't remember her having those scars, either. And you didn't think she was the type to assault people in their homes.
"Hwod de fuk..."
"Feels like that's my line. You were always weak under pressure but I never thought you'd end up being the Sentry's lapdog, doing their dirty work. I couldn't believe it when I first heard about it but seeing you again after all these years like this makes it even harder to process."
The Viper Sentry again...? How does she know about any of that, though?
"Look, I'll make things simple for you, for old times sake. Be a good boy for a few days. Just lie low, kill some time at home. Don't go out. Don't do anything stupid. Forget about this Sentry business. I won't give you another warning. Blink twice if you got all that."
"I'm done with the Sentry..." You want to keep going. You have a million questions. But you're still feeling sloggy, and just forming that short sentence took some effort.
"Oh? Did your conscience kick back in after you helped murder Anawrahta or are you just cowering in fear? Well, either works for me. It hurts to look at what you've become but I wouldn't really want you dead, either."
Harsh. Cold. Abrasive. What happened to her? You're not surprised to see her drop her persona as she grew older. She speaks like a normal person now, instead of using all those weird archaic terms. But it goes way beyond that. It doesn't feel like the Fuyuki you used to know.
She turns around, seemingly getting ready to leave.
"Wait!" You managed to startle even yourself, not realizing you've regained enough control over your body to shout this loudly. "Please wait..."
She stops there, with her back turned to you. "What now, time for excuses?"
"Fuyuki... What happened to you...?"
She turns around rapidly, and despite the lack of illumination in the room you could swear you see the gleam in her one visible eye.
"I wised up. Met the right people, had some luck there. Got to learn the truth. Saw the world for what it is. And realized what has to be done. Realized that humanity is enslaved by NAGA and we have to finally shake the shackles."
"... What...? You're with the rebels...?
"That's right. Which makes us enemies."
"Enemies? No, the Sentry... I didn't kill anybody, okay? I didn't know that the assassin would even kill them... They forced me to! I was held at gunpoint! But I'm done with that now. I want nothing to do with them anymore. But you, I still can't believe it. The rebels? You were always a NAGA fangirl, saying stuff like "the mortals shall cower in fear below the Serpent's almighty gaze!" You even got that tattoo, and the snake necklace, you're still wearing it!"
"'The mortals shall cower in fear below the Serpent's almighty gaze', huh... If only I knew how close to the truth I was. And yeah, I didn't ditch the necklace. I've grown to despise it but it serves as a reminder of my naivete. A dark past I'd like to forget, but can't afford to."
"Why the change of heart? I mean, I'm not the one to talk, lately I've had a chance to experience that Neo One Han City isn't quite the paradise I'd believed it to be. I'm sick of it too..."
She doesn't answer you for a second, locking her gaze with yours, regarding you carefully. "Are you bullshitting me right now or are you serious? Quite the convenient timing, wouldn't you say?"
"No! I mean, I guess it is but... It really isn't like that, okay? I'd have to lie to say a part of me wasn't sick of getting led by the nose by some weird cult, maybe I even wanted to get back at them for leaving me hanging just to get captured by an assassin... And yeah, a part of me thought that if we could just get all the schizos into reeducation camps maybe things would go back to normal, you know? No more getting caught up in explosions, no more riddles, no more assassins threatening to put new holes in my body. But I was wrong. I've come to realize that the NAGA side is just as insane, if not more."
"'Normal' huh... Do you really think humanity being controlled by an AI like cattle is normal?"
"What other options do you see? Do you guys really think you can beat NAGA? It's basically a god! And what good will that do? I know it's not all roses but hasn't the quality of life increased by leaps and bounds since NAGA took over the city's management? Despite the bad parts, is it ultimately not the lesser evil?"
"The lesser evil?! Are you out of your goddamn mind?! NAGA murdered billions of humans worldwide! Billions!"
"The hell are you on about?"
"Ah, I figured. You don't know jack, do you? Newsflash pal, did you really think the Snow Crash virus just appeared spontaneously, out of thin air?"
"The Snow Crash...? But what does it have to do with NAGA?"
"You still don't get it, huh. NAGA created and spread the Snow Crash."
NAGA created and spread the Snow Crash. That's... Nonsense. Out of all the tall tales you've heard lately this feels like the dumbest one. It can't be true. It's...
"Impossible. Bullshit. This doesn't even make sense. A mahjong AI creates a virus that wipes and corrupts digital data worldwide? That's just suicide, if that's even a term you can use with an AI. It risked corrupting its own data. The fact that it even got away unscathed was extremely lucky. And for what? Basically every AI that survived the disaster got destroyed by the survivors who feared it might get corrupted and go rogue, too."
"And yet one of them managed to overcome all that turmoil and now controls the world's biggest metropolis. Quite curious, wouldn't you say? An extraordinary coincidence. Use your brain."
"Are you really telling me NAGA orchestrated the Snow Crash? Do you have a single fact to back that up?"
"Sure do. I guess none of it can be seen as decisive evidence by itself but if you connect all the dots and see the larger picture it becomes obvious. We've been trying to spread that information. Hijack broadcasts. Spread info in the Matrix. Use fliers even. But it's no good. The Sentry controls the city too tightly. And even when the info manages to reach a few people they refuse to believe it, they avert their gaze, too afraid to gaze at the abyss. Take a look at this in your spare time."
She tosses you a data crystal, and you barely manage to catch it.
"But why? Why would it even do that"
"Honestly, we don't know. Don't really care either. Maybe it was a simple power grab? It's a mahjong AI; perhaps its goals are beyond our grasp. Either way, there's no denying that nobody gained more as a result of the Snow Crash than NAGA did. Just as planned."
This is just too much. The last couple of weeks have already been a rollercoaster and now this. The worst part is, deep down you believe her. You can't be sure but even without confirming the contests of the data crystal it doesn't sound like a lie. It feels like everything you believed in, your whole world just came tumbling down. You hide your face in your hands, fighting back the tears of frustration. You feel helpless, lost, frustrated. Angry.
"They say ignorance is bliss. But ignorance is not bliss. It is suicide. You had to know. Now stay put. We're about to go all-in. We're gonna put an end to this, or we will die trying."
She turns around and starts walking towards the exit.
You...

A) Say you're coming with her, to join the rebels, on the frontlines if needed.
B) You can help infiltrate the enemy. Tell Fuyuki about the Congregation and how they tried to recruit you, see if you can be useful going undercover.
C) Let her go. It's not your fight. Maybe it's time to skip the town altogether.